Summary
This Ninth Circuit opinion addresses Defendant-Appellant Barry Ray Knight’s appeal of his conviction and sentence for receipt and possession of child pornography. The panel rejected Knight’s argument that a special condition of supervised release prohibiting visual depictions of pornography was impermissibly overbroad under United States v. Cope, distinguishing the condition because it applies only to visual depictions rather than descriptive materials. Additionally, the court vacated and remanded the standard conditions of supervised release because the district court failed to orally pronounce them at sentencing, citing United States v. Montoya. The conviction and remaining sentence conditions are otherwise affirmed.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the special supervised-release condition prohibiting Knight from viewing or possessing specified visual depictions of child or adult pornography was impermissibly overbroad because it did not expressly exempt materials needed for a future collateral challenge to his conviction or sentence.
- Whether the district court erred by failing to orally pronounce the standard conditions of supervised release before imposing them in the written judgment.
Holdings
- The special supervised-release condition restricting Knight's possession and viewing of specified visual depictions of child or adult pornography was not impermissibly overbroad.
- The district court erred by imposing standard supervised-release conditions in the written sentence without orally pronouncing them.
Key quotations
“AFFIRMED IN PART, VACATED IN PART, and REMANDED.” (122 F.4th at 854)
Factual background
Undercover officers used a peer-to-peer downloading program to connect to Knight's computer and download files available for sharing, including videos depicting child pornography. A search warrant based on that information led to the seizure of electronic devices from Knight's home, which contained more than 3,100 videos and 115,000 still images of child pornography. After a bench trial, Knight was convicted of receipt and possession of child pornography, and the district court imposed a 192-month sentence followed by lifetime supervised release.
Procedural history
The district court convicted Knight of receipt and possession of child pornography and sentenced him to 192 months' imprisonment followed by lifetime supervised release. Knight appealed his conviction, sentence, and supervised-release conditions. The Ninth Circuit resolved most challenges in a concurrently filed memorandum disposition, affirmed the conviction and sentence in relevant part, rejected the substantive challenge to the pornography condition, and vacated and remanded as to standard supervised-release conditions that were not orally pronounced.
Remand instructions
Vacate only the standard supervised-release conditions referred to in the written sentence but not orally pronounced, and remand to the district court for the limited purpose of reconsidering those conditions after orally pronouncing any conditions it chooses to impose and giving Knight an opportunity to object. The conviction, sentence, and challenged special pornography condition otherwise remain affirmed.